


The Sting

by 7veilsphaedra



Category: Saiyuki, Saiyuki Blast
Genre: Crack, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:20:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25910485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7veilsphaedra/pseuds/7veilsphaedra
Summary: Zakuro tests the con-man waters, while Nii babysits. Fun times.
Relationships: Zakuro/Nii Jianji
Kudos: 1





	The Sting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Whymzycal for the 2014 Yuletide Smut giftfic exchange on Dreamwidth. Pure crackfic.

Dark green glints of light splashed into the shadowy areas of the cava, demon eyes glowing from charcoal. Nii took a long drag on his cigarello, and flicked through the list of auction results, scratching rough tallies on his catalogue with a pencil. A case of this vintage fetched over 6.7 million Yen three years prior. It was hard to estimate what this particular bottle would be worth today — if the wine was real, which it, most definitely, was not. He ground the butt out under the heel of his shoe, as though just noticing the no smoking signs posted everywhere, and smirking at the sommelier’s offended sniff.

The mark was a wine collector, a middle-aged man named Huey — the name, Nii sneered to himself, of an overgrown frat-boy — one who took up way too much space everywhere he went, with too much smile and clothes that cost too much. His taste for expensive wine had been acquired at overpriced restaurants during a career in insider trading, which left him with, both, the means to indulge his appetites and the suspicious nature of all con men. It made him the perfect mark with his over-inflated sense of self-preservation. 

Huey had brought his backup muscle, a somewhat younger man unconvincingly named Milton Keyes. He was a close-shaven brick shithouse hired from a security firm, who rocked the ex-Navy Seal vibe, which Nii did not buy for a second. Still, a big enough gorilla to cause major injuries. They stood in the centre of Huey’s cellar, a labyrinth carved out of the sandstone beneath his Sardinian villa, which once sheltered Communist sympathizers until the Allied forces liberated the hell out of the island in 1943. This was so that Huey’s hired expert, acclaimed sommelier, Pietro D’ella Magniolese, could assess the case lots Nii and his protegé came to deal.

“You doubt the integrity of Zakuro, the Magnificent?” Nii’s protegé mimicked D’ella Magniolese’s sniff, and waved a claret velvet butterfly sleeve, nearly knocking over some hand-blown pipots in the process. A tinkle of the jingle bells attached to his pants indicated that fresh illusions were at work, although Nii had no idea what they were since Zakuro had been veering off-script all morning.

Nii suppressed a roll of the eyes. It was second nature within this industry to doubt the integrity of rare wine dealers. The possibility of being bilked added danger to each transaction and fed the egos of collectors who chalked their successes up to esoteric levels of knowledge, rather than the likeliest of reasons, sheer dumb luck. The latest movement to install microchips on rare bottles had increased the odds, but with how Zakuro messed with people’s heads, implanting the haziest of fake memories of newspaper reports, here, and the skewed results of a chemical test, there, the chances of being discovered as frauds depended on their marks being unusually clever at sniffing these things out. Huey didn’t look that astute, but that was part of his act.

“Well, little lady, that’s why I’ve hired this here Signor Magniolese-feller,” Huey guffawed, teeth gleaming and bottom-smacking Zakuro so sturdily he almost dislodged yesterday’s breakfast. “He’ll set us right.”

Zakuro started to splutter about being male and other yadda-yadda-boring stuff that did not concern Nii. It was his facility for deception which, in fact, drained the con of most of its charm for Nii. Not the smallest pain had been taken: the rare vintage was tap water; the heavy blue-green pre-Napoleanic bottles, jam jars; the labels, bits of recycled duct tape peeled off the exhaust pipe from Zakuro’s wreck of a motorbike. It was kind of funny, but since every illusion was the product of hypnosis, not artistry or knowledge, also kind of dull. Even so, Nii had had to take Zakuro by the hand and research every aspect of the con, from specific gravity to the mold spores which would not be found during that era, just to pull off the ruse. Zakuro barely understood what mold had to do with anything.

Even his background bio as an eccentric, reclusive glam-rocker fallen upon hard times and forced to sell off his collection showed up as obsolete web-pages in the way-back function of the search engines because of Nii’s hacking skills. Nii’s story, as the deep sea diving treasure hunter bankrolled by the now-bankrupt rocker, who found this particular haul in the Captain’s quarters of a sunken U-boat off the shores of Corsica, was trumpeted recently in Oenophilia, the industry’s flagship magazine — untraceable Nazi loot being a thing, apparently. 

Siphoning off a cool 500 - 600K of Huey’s trust fund should’ve been as easy as stealing whirled peas from babies — all, but for Zakuro’s stunning lack of any brain-power besides hypnosis. Without Nii at his side, coaching him every step of the way, his ship would’ve sunk before it left its moorings. Even now, his arrogance threatened to swamp their scheme at every step.

“There’s only one way to really tell, isn’t there?” Nii bobbed up onto his toes, grinning like a schoolboy. 

“Is there?” Four pairs of eyes turned to him in surprise, Zakuro’s widest of all.

“Naturally. We all know what’s what. So pick a bottle, any bottle you like. Let’s open it and sample. That should put your fears to rest, right?” 

Three sets of eyes quickly melted into glazed horror.

“Okay, what is this you are doing?” Zakuro had conjured up their usual time-out. “How is the Mighty Zakuro supposed to make something taste like something he has never tasted?”

“Whoa, where did you send them?” Nii had to intervene. Huey was turning white and had started to scream. “The skull place? The dead zone?”

“I dunno … yeah, maybe. What does that have to do with anything?”

“We’re trying to get this geezer to transfer a fuck-ton of money to our bank account, not give them heart attacks. Can’t you at least soften it up by shoving them into a brothel somewhere? No skulls!”

Zakuro waved his sleeves with another sniff. “Fine, but if that’s the case, why do you want them to drink up our profits? Can’t we do this without the taste-test?”

Nii watched the clammy pallor of the collector turn pink and sweaty. Milton Keyes let out a cowboy whoop of joy. Only the sommelier looked uncomfortable. So far, not bad, but “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Zakuro blinked, blank-faced. Nii shook his head, all the remaining pleasure from this crime draining into boredom.

“It’s not about the money?” Zakuro looked confused.

Nii clucked his tongue. 

“I thought … I mean, the Stupendous Zakuro thought he was supposed to trick these guys.”

“That’s right.” Nii hopped up onto some stacked wooden crates of Louis Jadot Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru 2011 and thunked his heels against the sides, disturbing sediment to a rousing chorus of clinks, clinks, clinks. “Our blushing rose, Lady Kyoushu, asked me to take you out for a test drive to see if you were ready for professional level delusions, not parlour tricks, but so far I’ve had to teach you every little thing and coach you through every little step.” 

“But the Great Zakuro has done everything you’ve asked of him,” Zakuro started to panic. “How was giving them a taste of the wine supposed to help trick them?”

“It was a trust-winning gesture, silly. If we allowed them to sample their choice of the product at no risk, then we would’ve come across as sincere and trustworthy.” 

“But you still haven’t told Mighty Zakuro how he is supposed to make them taste something he has never tasted.”

“Isn’t that where skill and technique comes in?”

Zakuro’s fingers fluttered helplessly.

“Too late now.” Nii glanced over at Huey who was licking his lips and rubbing his hands together like someone about to carve into hot roast pig. “They’ve forgotten all about the wine and want a taste of something entirely different.” 

“My illusions are perfect.” Zakuro insisted, pissy indignation souring his face. It reminded Nii a little of Genjyou Sanzo, although the sommelier was putting up some competition, moving past impatience into full affront.

“Congratulations.” Nii drawled. “Because of your perfect illusions, they’re all sporting hard-ons, all except for their wine-taster who’s into men and doesn’t want to be there.” 

Zakuro waved and tinkled and D’ella Magniolese’s eyes suddenly went wide. 

“Drag queen,” Zakuro explained. 

“Better,” Nii conceded, “but not enough by far. You realize you won’t stand a chance against the ikkou at this rate.”

“What is the Mighty Zakuro to do? Every time the plane of illusion shifts, the less power remains to hold their minds.”

Nii swallowed a smile. This was starting to feel like fun again, “Maybe something can be salvaged from this fiasco.”

Zakuro looked at him as though to ask, “What?” 

Nii waggled his eyebrows. 

“Zakuro the Great and Powerful cannot read your cryptic thought transmission.”

“Oh ferfucksake!” Nii slapped the side of the crate. “Get them off.”

“Get them off,” Zakuro repeated, “of what?”

Nii couldn’t believe his ears.

“Their shoes? Their socks?”

“Do you know what this feels like?” Nii mimicked the universal gesture for male masturbation.

Zakuro gaped. Beside him, Milton Keyes was hooting and hollering about fillies and pony rides and Huey was calling for someone to come to papa. Nii supposed it was all a bit gross, but he was enjoying himself too mightily to feel sorry for his companion. 

“If you can’t make them feel it by hypnosis, then you had better stand in,” he explained.

Zakuro silently mouthed the words for “Stand in for ….”

“That’s right.” Nii hopped off the crates and gave them a little pat. “Come on. Drop your pants and bend over. If you don’t let me loosen you up first, it’s going to hurt like hell. And don’t you worry about the wine-taster. I’ll take care of him after I’ve finished you.”


End file.
